Why yawning is no 侮辱... it's a 調印する that someone really cares

By Fiona Macrae for the Daily Mail
Updated: 10:08 BST, 8 December 2011

Yawn: Scientists believe far from 存在 a 調印する of 退屈 the gesture can signal empathy

When your friend stifles a yawn as you 雑談（する）, don’t be 感情を害する／違反するd. Instead, take it as a compliment.

For, far from 存在 a 調印する of 退屈, yawning may signal empathy.

Scientists believe that contagious yawning ? yawning after someone else does ? is a 調印する of 存在 熱心に 利益／興味d in the first person’s thoughts and feelings.?

This is the theory of Italian 研究員s who 観察するd more than 100 men and women from four continents as they went to work, ate in restaurants and sat in waiting rooms.

When one of the volunteers yawned, the 研究員s 公式文書，認めるd whether anyone within a 10ft 半径 ‘caught’ the yawn ? that is, yawned within the next three minutes.

Their results showed that race and gender had no 影響 on whether the uncontrollable 勧める to yawn was passed on. But how 井戸／弁護士席 the two people knew each other did.

A 相互の yawn was most likely to occur の中で family members, then friends, then 知識s. The 現象 was least ありふれた の中で strangers, the 定期刊行物 PLoS ONE 報告（する）／憶測s.

The University of Pisa team 結論するd that contagious yawning is driven by how emotionally の近くに we are to someone and so how likely we are to empathise with them.

They say there are other 推論する／理由s to link yawning with empathy.

Contagious: Even animals can 'catch a yawn' with 最高の，を越す of the yawners 存在 a 国境 Collie

Why yawning is no 侮辱... it's a 調印する that someone really cares

For instance, we start to ‘catch’ yawns from the age of four or five, around the time when we develop the ability to identi fy each other’s emotions 適切に.

熟考する／考慮するs also show that those susceptible to contagious yawning are better at inferring what others are thinking from their 直面するs.

Most animals, 含むing snakes and fish yawn, but it is only contagious in? humans and chimps and, によれば a 最近の 熟考する／考慮する, dogs.

Scrutiny of 29 dogs placed in a room with a yawning man 設立する that 21 - or 72? per cent - also started to yawn.

最高の，を越す of the yawners was a 国境 Collie, fitting in five yawns in the space of a? few minutes.

The 研究員s, from the University of London's Birbeck College, said the? 技術 may 許す the pet to build stronger 社債s with their owners.